Super Mario Bros controlled by sound & music

People like gaming, and people like music – how about mixing that up? We’re not talking about anything so boringly sensible as Guitar Hero or Rock Band; no, we want classic Super Mario Bros controlled by clapping, strumming and singing. That’s exactly what artists and tinkerers Marc Sciglimpaglia and Phoenix Toews came up with.

Video demo after the cut

They’re running Super Mario Bros in an emulator, but rather than hook up a control pad they’ve hooked up their nin.reflux to the Max/MSP/Jitter emulator to allow noises to control it. Those noises can be as straightforward as clapping to jump, or as complicated as sustained or changing sung notes.

The intention is to take a game that is incredibly familiar to a large number of gamers and getting them involved with it in a new and different way. Of course, you can also apply it to scary games and have people accidentally kill themselves when they shriek as monsters leap out. Alternative inputs could use different sensors, such as video cameras, heat or vibration.